154 FOUR YEARS IN THE ^\TIITE NORTH [April 



which headed due west out over the ice of Smith Sound, 

 while we proceeded northward, following the ice-foot 

 closely, stopping at night for two hare and a ptarmigan 

 which we saw on the hillside. 



From Force Bay northward the ice-foot along this 

 coast is truly a revelation. I have never seen anything 

 like it anywhere else in the Arctic regions. Kane, in his 

 narrative, often speaks of the ice-foot in the vicinity 

 of his winter quarters, but does not begin to describe its 

 wonders or the tremendous advantages which it offers 

 for rapid travel. 



The formation of this so-called ice-foot or ice-collar, 

 even in our best and latest text-books, is inaccurately 

 described. Snow has no part whatever in its building. 

 After it is once formed, falling and drifting snow may 

 lodge thereon and add to its apparent bulk. The ice- 

 foot proper, however, never exceeds in height that of 

 the highest tide, and it is slowly built up from low- 

 water mark by accretion, each receding tide leaving 

 its congealed deposit. An ice-foot may form in the 

 same way on the perfectly vertical face of a cliff where 

 snow could not possibly lodge. And in the same fashion 

 it may furnish passing sledges with a good but often 

 dangerous highway. 



The width of an ice-foot depends entirely upon the 

 angle of the slope from high-water to low-water mark, 

 varying from the narrow ledge clinging to the vertical 

 face of a cliff to the broad marge resting upon a gently 

 sloping beach, often 200 yards in width and as smooth 

 and level as a floor. The last is descriptive of what is 

 to be encountered all along that northern shore from 

 Force Bay to the Humboldt Glacier, contrary to what 

 one would expect to find beneath the almost vertical 



